On December 24, 1929 President Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou were hosting a holiday party, including the children of the President's aides and friends. In the hallway the Marine Band played Christmas songs. The President was enjoying the festivities when Ike Hoover, the White House usher, came into the room and whispered in the president’s ear. The president and his secretaries were needed immediately. Rarely has a crisis so immediately required the attention of the chief executive.
In 1906, a famed explorer saw something on the horizon that would lead an expedition of men to search for a magnificent land they hoped would be full of new and undiscovered treasures for science.
One famous dolphin lived near the shores of New Zealand in the late 1800s, and swam alongside hundreds of ships, becoming a beloved figure to locals and foreigners alike, and described as ”the best known fish in the world.”
It was relatively common in the middle ages for Kings, royals, and various other titled men to die in combat, and they were at least usually expected to fight personally. Despite the dangers of medieval combat and the expectations of nobility, however, many at the highest levels of aristocracy died in less than noble mundane accidents, and even in embarrassing circumstances.
In April of 1894, a young man from Pittsburgh left Tabriz, Persia, aboard a bicycle, bound for the turbulent land of the Ottoman Empire. His story had seen coverage in newspapers around the world - attention would only magnify when he mysteriously disappeared in the remote terrain of Turkish Armenia.